Etty Hillesum
Etty Hillesum
Esther "Etty" Hillesumwas the author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943 she was deported and killed in Auschwitz concentration camp...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth15 January 1914
trying nuance life-is
Life cannot be captured in a few axioms. And that is just what I keep trying to do. But it won't work, for life is full of endless nuances and cannot be captured in just a few formulae.
suffering matter bears
Suffering has always been with us; does it really matter in what form it comes? All that matters is how we bear it and how we fit it into our lives.
prayer night lasts
I'm afraid I did not pray hard enough last night.
love real farewell
Every day I shall put my papers in order and every day I shall say farewell. And the real farewell, when it comes, will only be a small outward confirmation of what has been accomplished within me from day to day.
people tree feelings
Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.
ocean sailing desire
Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship, sailing across endless oceans, never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, it will find mooring for a moment.
strength thinking people
I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
destiny men shapes
How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.
wall views cells
Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.
sorrow share broads
I know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them; they pass through me, like life itself, as a broad eternal stream...and life continues...
life poland stay-with-me
Life is good, after all...and that's what stays with me, even now, even when I'm about to be packed off to Poland.
want riches
And now that I don't want to own anything any more and am free, now I suddenly own everything, now my inner riches are immeasurable.
hate healing thinking
It is the only thing we can do. Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. And remember that every atom of hate that we add to this world makes it sill more inhospitable
simple indulge-in excess
The fact is I don't lead a simple enough inner life. I indulge in excesses, bacchanalia of the spirit. Perhaps I identify too much with everything I read and study. Someone like Dostoevsky still shatters me.